We’ve heard a lot in recent months about the amendment prohibiting funding for abortion that Rep. Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan, got added to the House version of the health care bill, and how Stupak and a group of ten other House Democrats will not support any final bill, such as one based on the Senate bill, which includes funding for abortion. Here is Stupak, who has a serious, dignified demeanor, explaining his position in an interview on Fox News. It is most interesting. While he wants a law that will provide health care for all Americans, he is absolutely opposed to any change in the long standing federal policy which prohibits federal funding for abortion. It’s clear he’s not going to change. It’s clear he’s not a Ben Nelson. So how do the promoters of Obama’s bill, which includes funding for abortion, expect to get the bill passed?

It’s fascinating that the campaign to nationalize health care, which Stupak otherwise supports, is crashing in a heap because most of the liberals who demand the state funding of health care also demand the state funding of abortions. The lesson is that liberalism is unable to stop itself from driving over a cliff, because its inherent egalitarian logic compels its votaries to seek not only material equality, meaning in this case the equal provision of medical insurance, but moral equality as well, meaning the elimination of moral standards and the state subsidization of immoral behavior.

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Jeff W. writes:

Here is a brief response to your “Stupak speaks” thread:

American voters overwhelmingly do not want Obamacare, but the USA has always been a place where money talks. According to this list, five of the legislators who will be at the health care summit have collected about $2 million apiece in lobbying cash since 2005. Other attendees have collected lesser amounts. That kind of money speaks in a firm, loud voice.

What is that money saying? Some of it wants Obamacare. Some of it was at the table when the deal that has been put together. Some of it does not want Obamacare. Some of it would go along with Obamacare if the right changes were made to the bill. The money is delivering a confused message.

But the politicians are not confused. They want the money to keep flowing in. To keep the money flowing, the politicians must make a show of trying to satisfy all their contributors, but they don’t need to actually deliver a bill if they have a plausible excuse. Also, to keep the money flowing in, it pays to drag the process out as long as possible.

Stupak may be playing an important role in this theater of the absurd. But there is so much deception involved in the whole process that it is impossible for anyone to really know what is going on.

February 26

Richard O. writes:

The liberal passion for moral equality — or rather its inability or unwillingness to make any kind of moral distinction whatsoever — explains why a Gay Pride parade in D.C. in the 90s welcomed (or could not bring itself to exclude) the North American Man-Boy Love Assoc.

Kilroy M. writes:

Has the absurdity of health care legislation that subsidises the killing of the unborn occurred to anybody in this debate?

LA replies:

Of course abortion has always been presented as a health measure, to protect the psychological health of the mother.

Kilroy replies:

Yes I know that, I just think that there is a blinding irony nonetheless.